The SFA and Sevco are trying to pin the blame for the 2011 UEFA licence on Craig Whyte.
The former billionaire from Motherwell is the only man to have been disciplined for the collapse of Rangers (IL) with the SFA still waiting for payment of a £250,000 fine that accompanied the lifetime ban handed out in 2012.
Whyte’s High Court trial last summer has set up two Notice of Complaints relating to the 2011 UEFA licence given to Rangers (IL) when the club continued to buy players and hand out new contracts while ignoring an overdue tax bill of £2.8m from HMRC.
That bill arose from the side contracts given to Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer, no action has been taken against Rangers (IL) despite fielding ineligible players in Scottish Cup ties.
During Whyte’s trial several witnesses made it clear that the tax bill had been overdue since November 2010 with this factor reducing the price of the club from £6m down to a token £1.
The process of applying for the licence was started in February with trusted men like Andrew Dickson, Alastair Johnston, Dave King and Paul Murray involved in the lies that denied Celtic an opportunity to play in the Champions League qualifiers.
Responding to the initial Notice of Complaint the tribute act stated:
THE Rangers Football Club (“the Club”) was informed today by the Scottish FA (“SFA”) that, after an eight-and-a-half month investigation, the SFA will not be proceeding with a Notice of Complaint in respect of the submission made by the Club to the SFA at the end of March 2011 with regard to the issue of the Club’s UEFA licence for the following Season.
Shifting the timeline to April onwards follows the same tactics as the Nimmo Smith enquiry set up by the SPL in 2012.
Nimmo Smith was tasked with investigating side letters and undeclared payments from July 1998 when the SPL was set up.
The published report changed the reference date to November 2000- after Flo and de Boer had been signed with the club finally admitting their guilt to HMRC after a police raid in July 2007 uncovered the contract side letters that the club had denied existed.
Having got away with that stunt on the Nimmo Smith report- with no club noticing, questioning or commenting on the date change- it seems that the SFA are trying the same tactic to absolve the Real Rangers Men from their guilt and make Whyte the fall guy.
In 2011 the Board of Directors of the SFA included George Peat, Stewart Regan, Campbell Ogilvie, Alan McRae, Rod Petrie, Ralph Topping and Jim Ballantyne.
Dickson was on the SFA Council.
While any of those men remain involved in Scottish football the game is compromised with self preservation coming ahead of the good of the game.
CLICK HERE and go to pages 39 and 43 to see the full list of SFA Committee men in 2011.
